


a rescue from the weight you've carried

by maviswrites



Series: Missing "Wizards" Moments [1]
Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro, Wizards (Cartoons)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst with a Happy Ending, Catharsis, Crying, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Human Jim Lake Jr. (Tales of Arcadia), Jim Has Been Through A Lot Okay, Jim Lake Jr. Needs a Hug (Tales of Arcadia), Post-Canon, Recovery, Spoilers, Wizards Spoilers (Tales of Arcadia)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25790023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maviswrites/pseuds/maviswrites
Summary: "I’m happy because you’re alive. I thought you were dead. You werestone, Jim. I thought you were gone. I really can’t take much more of that, you know,” she laughs breathily, the tears obvious in her voice.He hugs her tighter, trying to ignore the tears welling up in his own eyes. “I’ll try not to do it again.”//After the final battle with the Arcane Order, Jim and Claire take a moment to decompress. She and Toby help him figure out how to explain his sudden change to Barbara.
Relationships: Barbara Lake & Jim Lake Jr., Jim Lake Jr./Claire Nuñez, Toby Domzalski & Jim Lake Jr., Toby Domzalski & Jim Lake Jr. & Claire Nuñez
Series: Missing "Wizards" Moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053761
Comments: 32
Kudos: 250





	a rescue from the weight you've carried

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "The Gathering Chant" by Neulore.
> 
> I basically spent the whole time watching Wizards muttering to myself, "When will they quit hurting my boy?!" But hey, it gives me fuel with which to write post-canon h/c fluff, so at least there's that. Jim's been through a lot. Even though his transformation at the end of Wizards was what he wanted, and it made him happy... it's still one huge change to add to a whole list of 'em. I figure he needs a minute to just take a breath and cry.
> 
> Also, during the contents of this fic, please imagine that Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! have gone off to talk together and catch up, Steve left to go update Aja and Eli on his adventures in knighthood, and Krel went to finally get his dad-bot fixed.

< _Half of main street is on fire or frozen and the news is reporting a flying castle crashing down somewhere outside town. Anything you or your friends might be involved in?_ >

His heart races as soon as the text comes in on his newly-charged phone. He stays still, scanning it over and over again, frozen. From his seated position on one of the indoor seats of Douxie’s café, he feels Claire come up to stand behind him. She wraps her arms around his shoulders—they’re skinner than he’s used to—and locks her hands together against his chest. She took the opportunity to go to the café bathroom just a few minutes ago to shed her armor, now that the battle’s over, and it’s good to feel her bare skin against him.

She reads it over his shoulder, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she does so. “Your mom?”

Jim smiles without meaning to at the kiss. She’s been more affectionate than ever—even more than when he first turned into a troll—and it’s nice. Even nicer is the fact that he can fully feel the sensation of her touch against his smooth, warm, _human_ skin. “Yeah,” he says, though his voice doesn’t sound quite as steady as he’d like. “What do I say back?”

“Why not tell her you’re coming to visit?” she suggests. “After all, we are in town.”

He snorts. “I guess we are. You don’t think she’ll be… surprised? Seeing me like this?” he gestures to all of himself.

“Probably, but I doubt it’ll be a bad surprise,” she leans her top half around him and dots kisses on his forehead until he’s forced to laugh, ducking away. As he does, her fingers dance up and down his waist, and though he’s enjoying having the full human spectrum of sensation once again, he does _not_ enjoy getting tickled any more now than he did before his transformation. Helpless, he snorts and ducks away.

“Stop! Stop,” he snickers, getting out of the chair and—no, he’s not ashamed to say it— _running away_ from his scary sorceress girlfriend with her magic tickling powers. “Man, that might be the one thing I didn’t miss during my time as a troll. Can’t be ticklish if you’re made of stone.”

Claire’s still smiling as she darts her way into his arms, wrapping hers around his waist and hugging him tightly. “I’ll stop, I promise. Just… stay here.” She leans in and breathes into his chest, before quickly pulling away and pinching her nose shut between two fingers. “ _Ohhh_ boy, you’ve been wearing those clothes for a while.”

He laughs, encircling his arms around her and trapping her in as she tries to get away. “That’s what you get!”

After a second, she gives up pretending like she’s actually struggling to escape, and relaxes into the hold. “I meant what I said, you know,” she whispers, her fingers digging into the skin of his back like she’s afraid to let go. “At the school.”

He doesn’t have to ask what she means.

_“No matter what you are… I love you.”_

She’s been careful to say those three words more often, as things have gotten scarier. It was the last thing she choked out before Merlin’s stasis crystal encased him, neither of them knowing if he’d survive it or the shard in the amulet. They were the last words the two of them exchanged before the Battle of Killahead Bridge.

Claire’s not focused on looks. She loves _him_ , never mind whether he's human or half-troll or that… thing that Arthur turned him into with the Arcane Order’s dark magic. Whether he’d come out of that stone casing as a human or a half-troll, or even a goblin, she’d still be here. He’s sure of it.

“I know,” he whispers into her hair, just above her ear. It’s nice to be almost her size again, just a few inches taller. “I know you did. But you’re still allowed to be happy that I’m… human, again.”

“I’m happy because I know you wanted this,” she mumbles into his sweater. “The way people treated you back in Camelot… I’m happy you don’t have to go through that again. And I’m happy because you’re alive. I thought you were dead. You were _stone_ , Jim. I thought you were gone. I really can’t take much more of that, you know,” she laughs breathily, the tears obvious in her voice.

He hugs her tighter, trying to ignore the tears welling up in his own eyes. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

“Good. No more stupid self-sacrifices,” she scolds, drawing back far enough to look up at him. She doesn’t let the tears fall, but they well up in her eyes as she pulls a hand away and stabs a finger in his chest. “If you do that again, I’m telling your mom and letting her handle you.”

Jim winces at the thought. “Please don’t do that. I don’t think I can stand you and her being mad at me at the same time.”

“I’m not _mad_ , you big idiot,” her lip wobbles, but she breaks into a teary smile. “I’m _ecstatic_. I was so worried about you. You know I went into the Shadow Realm to find your soul?”

It feels like a vague memory, like a dream within a dream, but he has a mental image of Claire trying to persuade him to go with her. “I was… dragging the sword around,” he recalls. “Patrolling the Bridge.”

“You were in pain,” she sighs, looking down as she places a hand flat on his chest. “And I couldn’t do anything about it. And you dug that shard into your chest to buy us time, and I couldn’t do anything about it. And you got turned into a half-troll, and I couldn’t do anything about that. And you jumped into the Darklands, and I couldn’t do anything about it…” Her voice quavers, and she swallows hard. “My point is, quit hurting yourself because you think you have to do everything alone. I’m _here_ , Jim, and I’m not going anywhere. Me, and Toby, and Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!!, all of us. We’re here for you. You can rely on us to help you.”

He bites his lip at the stab of guilt in his stomach. “I’ve kind of put you through a lot, huh.”

“Just... stop making these kinds of decisions without us,” she says gently, their eyes locked. “Let us be there for you. I’d appreciate it. And I bet your mom would appreciate it, too.”

His mom. His eyes dart over to the phone still resting on the café table. It hasn’t buzzed since the first text. “I’m scared,” he says honestly. “Of telling her… of showing her.”

“It’s a big change.”

“It’s stupid!” he says, without any real heat to it, but he can feel himself getting worked up about it. This fear is ridiculous, he should be able to _control_ it. “I… I got through turning into a troll. I had to show her then! Sure, I get that was hard. It was. It should have been. But then I… I get exactly what I wanted, to be human again, and so…!” He’s frustrated, feeling hot tears rise up in his eyes. “So, why am I so _upset_?!”

Claire hugs him tighter. It feels so good, to have her face pressed against his shoulder instead of midway down his chest, the way it was when he was so much taller than her, so _why is he still crying_?

“I got you,” she whispers. And he believes her.

He lets his face come down to rest in her hair, and his shoulders shake. He lets the suppressed terror, anger, exhaustion, and even _grief_ just wash over him. Her hand rubs down his back, and he lets himself breathe as steadily as he can, thinking about everything bad and scary that's happened lately. The shard in the amulet, being slated for death, fighting in Killahead, becoming that... monster. Nearly killing Claire. Nearly dying.

Minutes pass. Slowly, slowly, his sobs are replaced with heavy, jagged breathing. His face starts to dry. He still holds on to her tight, but not as desperately as before.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve kind of been through a lot lately,” Claire says, a little too casually to be real, a few moments later when he’s calmed down a little.

He snuffles out a laugh, though he doesn’t raise his head from where it’s still buried in her hair, and she must take that as encouragement to continue. “Like… a lot. And you’ve barely had a minute to yourself to process it. It’s totally okay to react like this. I won’t say it’s normal, because none of this is normal, but it’s logical. You almost died. For a minute,” she pauses, taking an uneven breath, “you maybe _did_ die. And now, you have to worry about explaining everything to your mom. She’s not expecting you to look like this. She might freak out too, I don’t know. Your body needs to rest, your mind needs to rest. And I think you’re overloading right now because it’s all been too much for you and you _still_ have to worry about the next stressful thing.”

 _Stressful_ is one word for it; he exhales, huffing out a tiny giggle at the understatement. Her stray hairs blow away from her ponytail just the slightest bit from the pressure, and he can feel her body loosening its tension in response to him relaxing somewhat. Still, even though her face is hidden from him, he can imagine her brow scrunching up in confusion, demanding to know what’s going on in his head. “You’re probably right,” he says, smiling a little. “I just… I needed a minute to let it go free.”

“Your mom loves you,” she says soothingly, pulling back to face him. Her eyes are red, too, but she doesn't seem upset; there's a smile on her face. “She’s gonna see you, she’s probably going to cry a little bit. Probably good tears. And then she’s gonna hug you and be so, so happy to see you.”

“I don’t even know if we can stay,” he says, trying to be practical despite the lump in his throat. “It’s not as though our lives are going to all of a sudden be calm or easy. There’s something around every corner. There’s probably some evil werewolf plotting our demise right this second. That’s, like, the _one_ magical thing we haven’t run into yet.”

“Probably,” she grins, lighthearted once again. “And we still need to make sure the trolls get settled with the next Heartstone.”

He nods. “It’s not like any of them have a cell phone to call and update us, either.”

"We'll figure it out," she murmurs. And he believes her.

They stand there for a moment, just smiling at each other. Drinking it in. Just… being.

“You guys okay in there?” Toby ducks his head in. He’s been in the kitchen, throwing together sandwiches for them—it’s been too long since they last ate, he’d declared as soon as they got to the café to decompress. Douxie had left them the keys, and they might as well use them for some nourishment.

“We’re okay,” Jim says, pulling away from Claire and smiling back at her as they sit together at the table. Toby could probably hear them a little in the kitchen, from the laughing to the crying and everything in-between, but he doesn’t mention it in detail, just asks how they are. Toby’s subtle that way, when he wants to be. God, how he’s missed Toby. “Just thinking… after we eat, I should go see my mom.”

“Sounds good, Jimbo,” he replies, sitting down at the free chair and setting the plate of sandwiches down. “I need to go check in on Nana, too, and I bet the Nuñezes would love to see you, Claire.”

Claire winces. “Probably. They haven’t heard from me in days. I have no idea where my phone is.”

While the two of them chat, Jim sighs, looking over his phone and attempting to compose a text. < _Haha yeah, we’re close by actually. Mind if I come by the house? Got a lot to tell u._ > He taps his thumb—God, to have a thumb that’s actually small enough to press the buttons—against the side of the phone aimlessly, unsure as he skims over it. He could definitely write something better, something a little more informative or reassuring. But if he agonizes over it, this could take forever, and he could lose his nerve…

“Jim! Eat!” Toby urges. “I know it’s not as good as anything you’d make, but you’ve gotta be hungry.”

He is—the last thing he ate was the picnic basket Claire brought on their date just before Killahead, and doesn’t _that_ sound just wrong, now that he’s back to being human. He presses “send” before he can change his mind and picks up his sandwich, taking a bite.

Bananas and peanut butter—for the calories, Toby had said. They need to fill up, since it’s been a while since they last ate. It’s true that they’re not exactly the complicated, multi-ingredient po boys he used to make at home for him and his mom, but it’s still the first human-ish thing he’s gotten to eat in weeks without wanting to spit it back out. In fact, the burst of flavor makes him moan as soon as he takes a bite.

“Oh my god,” he mumbles through the food, chewing as slowly as possible, “Tobes, this is amazing. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Well, there’s more where that came from,” Toby says, pushing the stacked plate toward him.

By the time Claire and Toby finish their first sandwich, he’s made his way through four. “I guess you haven’t quite lost that troll appetite yet,” Claire laughs.

“I missed regular food,” he says, swallowing down the last one and closing his eyes. It was so simple, just peanut butter and banana and bread, and yet it’s almost overwhelming. He has to take a second to avoid a repeat performance of the crying jag from earlier.

Toby’s studying him when he opens his eyes again. “Well, you could cook now, too, you know,” he suggests. “Bet you missed doing that. It might make you feel a little more at home?”

He thinks about it, about the feeling of measuring and seasoning and carefully timing how long things stay in the oven. It’s about precision, and care, and the idea of making good food for someone you love, and he hasn’t gotten to do it for _so long_ … and now he can again. “That would be really nice,” he croaks out, and hopes they don’t notice.

Claire laying her hand over his says that she does notice it, but she smiles at him over her second sandwich, and his anxiety about it vanishes. “Things are gonna be a little overemotional for a while,” she says gently. “We’re okay with it. You should be, too.”

“Yeah, Jimbo,” Toby chimes in, taking Jim’s other hand, “it’d be kinda weird if you didn’t cry at the drop of a hat right now.”

He laughs—which was probably Toby’s goal in the first place—and nods, knowing as he does so that his eyes are watering up again. “I know. Trust me, I will be.”

“Okay! ’Cause we’re right here with you,” Toby says. “And if you want us to go with you to your mom’s, just ask.”

His phone beeps then, as though it’s been summoned just by Toby mentioning her. < _Yes please! Am at house all day w/ babies. Love u kiddo._ >

He smiles as he reads it over, typing, < _Be there soon, love u too_ > and hitting send. “If you guys wanna go see your family, I understand,” he says, looking back up at them. “But… you guys are my family now, too, just as much as my mom and me. So if you wanna come with me, I’d really appreciate it.”

Claire grins at him. “Thought you’d never ask.”

He rings the doorbell, knowing he could just walk in but thinking that this is probably the better choice. At least this way, his mom won’t see him wander in and have a heart attack. He fiddles with the zipper of his sweater nervously.

Behind him, Claire lays a hand on his shoulder. Toby is smiling at him when he looks back at the both of them.

“We’re here with you. It’ll be okay,” she whispers, and he finds himself thinking, _I know_.

The door bursts open, and his mom blinks down at him from the threshold.

“Hi, Mom,” he says, which feels like a letdown, and he gives an awkward little half-wave. “I was gonna text or call and tell you, but I figured… well, I thought this would be better, so—”

She’s already cupping a hand to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. “Jim,” she says, her voice breaking, “oh my gosh, Jim, honey, you’re—you’re—”

“I’m human,” he finishes for her. The waiting is interminable. “One hundred percent original Jim Lake Jr., Mom.”

She barks out a laugh, still sobbing, and throws her arms around him before he can move. He feels himself melt into the hug, arms coming up to slot around her waist. She’s taller than him once more, and it feels like being small again, like being a little boy hugging his mom after his first day of school. It feels comfortable.

Like being home again.

“I’m so happy you’re okay,” she hiccups, and he feels her take one hand off his back to scrub underneath her glasses. “I’m so happy.”

Jim smiles, feeling as Claire and Toby join in on the hug on either side of him. Claire cups a hand to the side of his head, running her fingers through his hair, and Toby just squeezes like he thought they’d never get to hug again. His mom is still half-crying, half-babbling about how happy she is to see him healthy and safe. _I’m so happy. I’m so happy._

He can take a break from worrying about the next threat or quest and just… enjoy this. He has his family. His support system. The ones who have saved him every moment since he first found that amulet. Human or half-troll or whatever, he belongs here, with them. Because they’re not letting go. He knows that now. And they won’t let him forget.

“I’m happy, too,” he whispers, closing his eyes and letting himself stay wrapped in their warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please consider leaving a comment! :)


End file.
